This application relates generally to a method for rendering dynamic vehicle telemetry on a graphical display, such as a computer monitor, and in particular to a method of providing a customizable system for a user to generate specific preferred dials and graphs for display.
Since 1996, every passenger car and light-duty truck sold in the United States has had a computer diagnostic port, called an OBD-II port or an SAE-J1962 port. This diagnostic port permits a mechanic or other user to connect to the vehicle and retrieve vehicle telemetry, that is, data about the vehicle, including engine, fuel system, brake system, and other data. Software has been developed to permit mechanics and automobile enthusiasts to develop graphical programs for displaying the telemetry data on a computer display.
In the past, these software systems have employed a variety of ways to display dials and graphs. Typically, a dial was drawn in a box, and the box displayed on the computer display. A needle was overlaid on the dial, and movement of the needle across the dial used to show data magnitude. If additional dials were to be displayed, additional boxes and dials, often of various sizes, were drawn. Users frequently wanted the dials to be arranged in specific patterns, and if that put the dials close together, the boxes often needed to be overlaid, often creating issues with box transparency and rapid rendering.
Rather than draw a plurality of boxes each having one dial, other systems used a single image having several dials in a particular arrangement. Needles were imposed over the image, one over each dial to show the data magnitude indicated by that dial. Unfortunately, the result was a static display that could not be adjusted for different user preferences without essentially starting with a new first-level image. This limited the flexibility of the system for users.
In other prior systems, a user was permitted to make certain dynamic changes to the viewable dashboard. However, such a system was typically designed for proper display only on a monitor having a specific resolution. If rendered on a monitor with a different resolution, the dashboard display would be distorted or incomplete. Therefore, developing a dashboard generation and vehicle telemetry rendering system having flexibility of design and display would be very useful for users.